It’s never been easier to discover new music almost every day, and this at a time when there is little variety on music stations and almost no room for new things. How much do our musical culture and our library owe to that entity with the little green ball! Once again, the person responsible for making things easier for you is Big Data .
Spotify is a clear example of how well it is handl. In 2007, the music industry seem dead due to furniture photo iting downloads. Today, Spotify has more than 300 million subscribers who waste no time downloading music. Data is the very reason for the company’s existence. Its embryo is The Echo Nest, a company specialising in musical Big Data, which they bought in 2006. Big Data is us to extract data to recognise user preferences and musical trends.
They study everything, as Eliot Van Buskirk, the company’s Data Storyteller, explains in this interview : from preferences by city, to what we listen to bas on the weather, mood or time of year.
What data does it collect?
• Most listen to genres
• At what time they listen to music
• Where they listen to it ( see map of top songs by country)
• Subscriptions to a specific playlist
• Popularity of artists
• Playtime (if you skip the song before 30 seconds it is a “dislike”)
345 million users
chart: spotify subscribers
Before Spotify, music platforms learn what you lik bas on you telling them in a be numbers way with afy asks you very little, but it always observes you. If it plays a song and after 30 seconds you skip it, you probably won’t like it, and if you listen to it not only once, but many times, save it to an offline downloadable playlist or share it, you probably do like it.
Essentially, Spotify acts as a matchmaker between songs and users, taking into account song data and user data. Including our context: location, date, time, and even what activity it infers we are doing.
The key to success: personalization and experience
We’ve probably heard of Spotify’s Weekly Discovery playlist. It’s a playlist with 30 songs that the platform offers weekly with the aim of recommending new songs to its users, allowing them to explore new musical horizons. Users are still surpris by how accurate the platform is in relation to musical tastes. But the truth is that there’s Mitä uutta MyGeotabissa elokuu 2024 magical about it. These lists are develop bas on the analysis of other users with whom they share artists and songs.
